Italy’s Justice Minister, much like Casablanca’s Captain Renault finding gambling at Rick’s Cafe American, has found politics connected with strike’s:

Justice Minister Angelino Alfano on Friday branded as “political” a strike called by magistrates to protest pay cuts for their sector included in the government’s austerity budget.

“The strike by magistrates is a political strike. The government is asking magistrates to make sacrifices the same way it is asking other public employees to do,” the minister said.

But, as if he were out of central casting, he made sure that he wasn’t too harse:

At the same time, however, Alfano said he recognised that entry level magistrates would pay an excessive individual price in the pay cuts and promised to try and rectify the situation.

Magistrates called a strike on Thursday on the grounds that they were being excessively penalised by the budget measures and that there had been no opportunity to negotiate the cuts with the government.